Thanks to the brilliant footage from the camera fitted to Sebastian Vettel’s car in practice on Friday we can get rare insight into the viciously bumpy, brutally fast world the drivers inhabit while lapping Interlagos.

There’s some interesting details to pick up on, particularly how early he opens his DRS going through the Senna S, Bico do Pato and the exit of Juncao:

I think it would be terrific to see more footage from these cameras during races. It’s a bit bumpy and low-quality for full screen viewing for extended periods, and it could do with being positioned more to the centre and angled downward slightly.

But as part of a picture-in-picture display it would be terrific. Imagine the insight it would add to situations such as the Massa/Hamilton collision in India. Or footage from Monaco in the rain…

I hope FOM press ahead with this technology. But having first seen it fitted to Mark Blundell’s crash helmet at Spa 17 years ago, I’m not optimistic that widespread use of it in F1 is just around the corner.

So enjoy the video while it’s there. I’m sure Bernie’s goons will have it taken down soon and it might be a while before we get another one.

Great stuff. I like how Rubens seems to look over at the grandstands down the back straight, and you can almost feel his pain as his neck leans outwards through Descida do Lago (“Turn 5” if you’re a philistine)…Hope it’s back next year, with a few tweaks so we can see the driver’s hands at work!

I just wish I’d known this was on during the race (presumably on BBC’s interactive channel) as the race was pretty settled by that late stage. I did wonder what had happened to the helmet cam, would have been good to hear Brundle and Coulthard’s thoughts on those shots.

Ah well, along with the classic “we apologise for loss of coverage” :) it’s a fittingly lame end to BBC’s exclusive F1 contract. They’ll not be winning any of their precious awards for that!

I am new to this forum but I have been checking out f1fanatic for years and loves this site. I Must look at it a dosen times a day! Anyway I will cut to the chase. I love helmet cams ever since I first saw one live in 2002 in indycar. I was blown away by them. I love onboard cameras full stop! My favorite era was F1digital+ back in the late 90’s and early naughtys. Anyway please check out the video I just uploaded, it has some fantactic footage from Paul Tracys helmet cam during the race especially through the corkscrew! Plus a crash! The angle is just perfect because you can see in both mirrors! Its brilliant! IU am uploading some more highlights now of other races with live helmet cams

Here is another cart helmet cam this time from Dario. In the one you can see his nose and just look at the rain streaming off of his visor! This is just incredible. There is a massive crash at the start of the race. Amazing nobody was seriously hurt in this.